Elliott hopes for a first in Arkansas
By: Josh Kraushaar
May 28, 2010 12:43 PM EDT

Arkansas state Sen. Joyce Elliott is casting her House campaign as an opportunity to make “history” in a state that’s never elected an African-American to Congress before.

Elliott, an African-American Democrat, is competing in a runoff primary with Arkansas House Speaker Robbie Wills in retiring Democratic Rep. Vic Snyder’s Little Rock district. And as she seeks to build on a strong performance in the first round of primary voting — she drew 40 percent of the vote to Wills’s 28 percent — Elliott’s running television ads that cast her as a different kind of candidate for Arkansas.

“Sen. Joyce Elliott isn’t like the rest,” two different ads begin. Her campaign site references a headline that says she’s “chasing history.”

Elliott, who was part of the first integrated high school class in her hometown of Willisville in 1966, acknowledged that race is a factor in the campaign.

“There’s no denying that it’s important to many voters,” she told POLITICO. “I certainly am very aware that my election would be changing history, because every one of the old Confederate states have elected an African-American, and we have not.”

Elliott has appealed to more liberal primary voters, identifying herself as a “progressive” and endorsing the new health care reform law — factors that some Democrats worry could be liabilities in a general election. One of her defeated primary opponents, Patrick Kennedy, said in an endorsement of Wills that Democrats needed to nominate a candidate with “crossover appeal.”

But Elliott also won the support of David Boling, Snyder’s former chief of staff and the third-place finisher in this month’s primary, and a Democratic operative based in Arkansas said that Elliott is the candidate with momentum in the race.

She could also be buoyed by high turnout from the Democratic Senate primary between Sen. Blanche Lincoln and Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, which is expected to drive the Democratic base to the polls. Said one consultant: “Robbie is the more moderate candidate, and Joyce is the more liberal candidate — and this is a Democratic primary based in Little Rock.”

Elliott, who dominated her home base of Little Rock in the first primary vote while losing in six more rural counties, played down the importance of ideology in the campaign.

“People aren’t concerned which way you lean, they’re concerned what you’ve done over the years — a record, as a champion for education, as a champion for working families,” she said.

Either Elliott or Willis will face Republican Tim Griffin, a former acting U.S. attorney and official in President George W. Bush’s administration, in the general election.